Friday, October 31, 2014

Over the summer, I decided it would be fun to look back through all the mail kids sent me during the 2014-2015 school year. I've picked out some of my favorites and will be posting one every Friday. They truly are inspiring.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

According to CCSS,
there are four types of nonfiction—literary, expository, persuasive, and
procedural. But traditionally, writers have used terms like these as labels for
various nonfiction writing styles.

I like the word
“styles” because it implies some sort of craft, some sort of decision-making
process on the part of the writer. When reading a nonfiction text, it’s
important for students to think about the author’s purpose and how that purpose
influenced the way he/she chose to present facts, ideas, and/or true stories. Remembering
that the author is a person with a distinct point of view will help young
readers think critically and spot potential biases. And that’s not all. Recognizing
how other authors craft their manuscripts can help young writers communicate
their own thoughts and ideas more effectively.

Okay, I’ll get down off my soapbox now.

If you google
“nonfiction writing styles,” you’ll pull up a gazillion different articles.
Some of the ideas in them overlap, and some don’t. Like I said last week,
classifying nonfiction can be a messy process.

After reading
dozens of articles on this topic and thinking about the children’s nonfiction
books being produced today as well as the kinds of writing that twenty-first
century learners should be able to craft, I see these three style categories—expository,
narrative, and persuasive.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Today I’m presenting two talks at the Leatherstocking Conference & Technology
Showcase in Vernon, NY. This year’s theme is STEM & Maker Spaces, so it’s
the perfect conference for me. I’m sharing my handout here (rather than on
paper), so that interested people can simply click on the links. (Plus it saves
trees.)

Thanks to blogger’s
scheduling option, the online handout for my second talk, The Science of
Readers Theater, will magically post at 2:20, when that presentation begins.

This post is the
online handout for my first talk,
Having Fun with Nonfiction: Using Award-winning Children’s Books to Support the
Reading Information Text Standards. It includes teaching ideas and book
lists that address each of the Common Core Reading Information Text Standards.
Enjoy!

I have created easy-to-read tables that show how the CCSS RIT
standards scaffold from one grade level to the next, and educators seem to love
them. They are especially useful for teacher-librarians, reading specialists,
and teachers with multi-grade classrooms. You can access them here:

CCSS RIT #1 and 2: Identifying main ideas/Recognizing
supporting detailsReading
Buddy programs have many proven benefits. When buddies use nonfiction trade
books with layered text, the benefits increase. Younger students read the
simpler main text (which includes the main idea) and the older student reads
the secondary text (which includes supporting details). Then they discuss the
art together. When they are done, they can work together to complete supporting
activities.

Born to Be Giants:
How Baby Dinosaurs Grew to Rule the World by Lita Judge

Me . . . Jane by Patrick McDonnell

Frog
in a Bog by John Himmelman

For Older StudentsEnergy
Island by
Allan Drummond

John, Paul, George,
& Ben by
Lane Smith

Neo Leo: The Ageless
Ideas of Leonard da Vinci by Gene Baretta

Planting the Trees of
Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola

Those Rebels John
& Tom by
Barbara Kerley (illus. Edwin Fotheringham)

Trout Are Made of
Trees by
April Pulley Sayre (illus. Kate Enderle)

CCSS RIT #4: Building Vocabulary
For younger children, fun songs are a great way to reinforce domain-specific
vocabulary introduced in children’s books. Here are some sample songs I’ve
written to build vocabulary included in lifecycle units on butterflies and
frogs.

For upper elementary students, Readers Theater is a wonderful way to reinforce
vocabulary (not to mention build fluency and comprehension). Many
science-themed children’s books can easily be adapted into Readers Theater scripts
that kids will love practicing and performing.

For information about
the benefits of RT and how to adapt books into scripts that are perfect for
your students, please look at the online handout for that program in the post
immediately following this one.

CCSS RIT #5: Identifying text features/Analyzing text
structuresThis
is an important skilltwenty-first
century learners. Many of my books include a wide variety of text features, so
I’ve developed teaching materials to go with them, including a SmartBoard slide
and several worksheets and activities that you can download:

Most of the other RIT
standards focus on one skill that is introduced in K and builds from one grade
level to the next. This standard looks at visual literacy in the early grades
and author intent in grades 2-5.

Grades K-1

Visual literacy is a
critical skill for twenty-first century learners. While any book illustrated
with art or photos can be used to discuss the role of the words and pictures,
here are a few that I particularly recommend:

Actual Size by Steve
Jenkins

The Day-Glo Brothers by Chris Barton
(illus. Tony Persiani)

An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston
(illus. Sylvia Long)

Mosquito Bite by Alexandra Siy and Dennis Kunkle

Redwoods by Jason Chin

Grades 2-5

To meet this standard,
students should have experience considering the intent of texts and author
point of view. Today’s students are also being asked to imagine themselves “in
the shoes” of the authors. They must consider that an author’s world view
affects how he/she approaches topics. For discussions of author intent, I
recommend two activities.

1.Compare
The Snail’s Spell by Joanne Ryder (illus Lynne Cherry) and Wolfsnail:
A Backyard Predator by Sarah C. Campbell and Richard P. Campbell, focusing
on why two authors might have created such different books about the same small
animal.

2. Imagine author Brenda Z. Guiberson’s
thought process as she developed the voice for Frog Song. How do
students think the publisher’s choice of Gennady
Spirin as the illustrator reinforced the author’s intent for the book?

For
discussions of point of view, ask students to consider how the authors’ world
view inspired them to write the following titles:

City
Chickens by
Christine Heppermann

A
Place for Bats by
Melissa Stewart (illus Higgins Bond)

Step Out Gently by Helen Frost and
Rick Lieder

CCSS RIT #7: More visual literacy and accessing
information quickly

Because visual
literacy is so important, this standard addresses it at increasing degrees of
complexity from grades K-4. See my notes above for book recommendations.

At grade 5, this
standard suddenly switches its focus to building skills for accessing
information. The good news is that publishers have already begun beefing up the
index and resource sections of all books, especially those for ages 10 and up.

CCSS RIT #8: Examining how an author supports points

List
books (in which the main idea is stated on the first page and subsequent spreads
are essentially a list of examples that reinforce the main idea) are a simple
and powerful way to show students how author can support their points. I
recommend the following titles:

Bird
Talk by
Lita Judge

Born
to Be Giants by
Lita Judge

A
Butterfly is Patient by
Dianna Hutts Aston (illus. Sylvia Long)

An
Egg is Quiet by
Dianna Hutts Aston (illus. Sylvia Long)

Feathers:
Not Just for Flying by
Melissa Stewart (illus. Sarah S. Brannen)

How
Many Ways Can You Catch a Fly? by Steve Jenkins

Move!
by
Steve Jenkins& amp; Robin Page

Never
Smile at a Monkey by
Steve Jenkins & Robin Page

A
Rainbow of Animals by
Melissa Stewart

A
Seed Is Sleepy by
Dianna Hutts Aston (illus. Sylvia Long)

Wings
by
Sneed Collard

CCSS RIT #9: Comparing multiple texts and various mediaThere
are lots of ways to help students develop this skill, and trade children’s
books can play a central role. Students will enjoy comparing fiction and
nonfiction books that look at the same topic. Here are some book pairs I
recommend:

And
if you are looking for a resource that combines studying fiction/nonfiction
pairs with teaching science, you might want to use Perfect Pairs: Using Fiction &
Nonfiction Picture Books to Teach Life Science, K-2, a book I
co-authored with former teacher Nancy Chesley. It’s available here:

http://www.stenhouse.com/html/perfect-pairs.htm

Students
will also be interested in comparing two, three, or even four or even three nonfiction
books covering the same topic but written in different ways by different
authors. Here are some great examples:

The
Wolves Are Back by
Jean Craighead George (illus. Wendell Minor)

When
the Wolves Returned by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent

Poop
Happened: A History of the World from the Bottom Up by Sarah Albee

The
Truth About Poop by
Susan E. Goodman (illus. Elwood H. Smith)

The
Tale of Pale Male by
Jeanette Winter

City
Hawk: The Story of Pale Male by Meghan McCarthy

Pale
Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City by Janet Schulamn (illus. Meilo So)

Wangari’s
Trees of Peace by
Jeanette Winter

Planting
the Trees of Kenya by
Claire Nivola

Seeds
of Change: Wangari's Gift to the World by Jen Cullerton Johnson and Sonia Lynn
Sadler

Mama
Miti by
Donna Jo Napoli (illus Kadir Nelson)

A
great general resource for planning lessons that take advantage of multiple
books and/or various media is Teaching with Text Sets by Mary Ann
Cappiello and Erika Thulin Dawes. Follow their blog here: http://classroombookshelf.blogspot.com/

Some of the books
I've listed above will eventually go out of print. Plus new books are being
published all the time. How can you find great nonfiction books in the future?

Friday, October 24, 2014

Over the summer, I decided it would be fun to look back through all the mail kids sent me during the 2014-2015 school year. I've picked out some of my favorites and will be posting one every Friday. They truly are inspiring.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

In last week’s
post, I described four nonfiction categories that can help readers and writers
make sense of the vast array of nonfiction book being published today. They
were survey, specialized, concept, and biography/autobiography.

As I gather
information for the science books I write, I often encounter instances in which
scientists disagree about how to classify a particular plant or animal. Some
say it belongs in genus X, and they have convincing evidence to back up their
claim. Others say it belongs in genus Y, and they too have solid rationale.
Classifying living things is messy. And it turns out that classifying
nonfiction can be messy, too.

Why do I say
that? Because CCSS has a completely different way of classifying informational
texts. Its four “types” (which it uses to classify much more than just books)
are literary, expository, persuasive, and procedural. Here’s how they define
their categories:

Write On, Mercy: The Secret Life of
Mercy Otis Warren by
Gretchen Woelfle

Wheels of Change by Sue Macy

Who
Says Women Can’t Be Doctors? by Tanya Lee Stone

Procedural Nonfiction

Dessert
Designers: Creations You Can Make and Eat by Dana Meachen Rau

Get
Outside by Jane
Drake and Ann Love

The
Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes by Doug Stillinger

Let’s Try It Out series by Seymour
Simon

Roald
Dahl's Revolting Recipes
by Josie Fison and Felicity Dahl

Science Play series by Vicki Cobb

Transformed:
How Everyday Things Are Made
by Bill Slavin

These categories are useful in some ways, but they seem
contrived to me. For example, the “literary” category seems too broad to be
meaningful. And isn’t a procedural text really just one specific kind of expository
text?

Monday, October 20, 2014

Every year my husband and I try to figure out whether the leaves on our trees are changing earlier than, later than, or at the same time as previous years. After we make our guesses, I pull out the photos I took in 2009 documenting the annual cycle of the sugar maple tree in our front yard. Year after year, we think the trees are changing later, but my 2009 photos always prove us wrong. Hmph!
﻿

2014

I also took a few photos of other trees in our yard in the autumn of 2009, including a sugar maple behind our driveway. For some reason, that tree always changes earlier than the one in the front. But what's even more interesting is that this year the leaves are reddish orange, where as in 2009 they were much more yellow. I wonder why.

Friday, October 17, 2014

Over the summer, I decided it would be fun to look back through all the mail kids sent me during the 2014-2015 school year. I've picked out some of my favorites and will be posting one every Friday. They truly are inspiring.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

During a Twitter chat this summer, Cathy Potter drew my attention to this post from The Nonfiction Detectives, the blog she maintains with Louise Capizzo. Cathy served on the Sibert committee in 2013, so if anyone knows how to evaluate nonfiction books for children, it’s her.

In hindsight, this wasn’t the first time I’d seen the basic nonfiction “types” mentioned. I read this postMary Ann Cappiello shared on The Classroom Bookshelf, the blog she maintains with Erica Thulin Dawes and Grace Enriquez, in 2012. Although Cappiello calls them “subgenres,” she’s describing the same categories as Potter and Capizzo.

Clearly, back in 2012, I wasn’t ready to fully see the value of thinking about these categories when reading and writing nonfiction. Maybe that shows that I’ve grown as a writer or at least as a thinker over the last couple of years.

In her post, Cappiello says, “Students benefit from understanding what type of nonfiction they are reading from the start, because understanding the purpose of a book is a clue to the content it contains.” In other words, writers (consciously or unconsciously) choose a particular text type based on their purpose, based on the information they want to share and how they want to share it. That’s a good lesson for writers as well as readers. It’s a good lesson for me.

In other words, before I begin writing, I can (and should) ask myself the following questions:

Is my goal to provide a broad overview of a topic?

If yes, then a survey book is the best choice.

If no, go to 2.

As Cappiello says, “Survey books tend to focus on one broad topic and break it down into a variety of subtopics. They do not go very in-depth with any of these topics, but they give the reader a general introduction.”

Most of my National Geographic Readers are survey books. So are Eyewitness books. That’s the best category because these books are meant to be general introductions.

Here are ten more sample titles:

The Animal Book by Steve Jenkins

Animal Grossapedia by Melissa Stewart

A Black Hole Is Not a HolebyCarolyn Cinami DeCristofano

The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins

Bugged: How Insects Changed the World by Sarah Albee

Frogs by Nic Bishop

The Great American Dust Bowl by Don Brown

Ice: The Amazing History of the Ice Business by Laurence Pringle

Redwoods by Jason Chin

Woman in the House (and Senate) byIlene Cooper

Is my goal to delve deeply into a highly-focused topic?

If yes, then I should write a specialized book.

If no, go to 3.

As Potter andCapizzo say, in a specialized book, “topics are delved into more deeply and may use primary or secondaryresources.” They suggest Bomb by Steve Sheinkin as a mentor text because it looks closely at a very specific series of events that affect the outcome of World War II. Sheinkin’s Port Chicago 50 would also fit in this category, as would my own book A Place for Butterflies, which looks closely at ways people are protecting butterflies and preserving their habitats. We are seeing more and more specialized books in recent years, and my guess is that this trend will continue.

No Monkeys, No Chocolate is a perfect example of a concept book because its central nugget is the interdependence of living things, an idea that I think is critically important for my young audience to understand. I’m passionate about my purpose, and as this revision timeline shows, that passion is what kept me working on the project for ten long years.Concept books work especially well for science-themed picture books that seek to elucidate life cycles, seasons, animal behavioral patterns, and other key concepts.

Here are ten more sample titles:

An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Aston Hutts

Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons by Sarah Levine

Frog in a Bog by John Himmelman

Just a Second by Steve Jenkins

Lifetime: The Amazing Numbers in Animals’ Lives by Lola Schaefer

Move by Steve Jenkins & Robin Page

Mysterious Patterns: Finding Fractalsin Nature by Sarah C. Campbell

Seeing Symmetry by Loreen Leedy

Swirl by Swirl by Joyce Sidman

Trout Are Made of Trees by April Pulley Sayre

Is my goal to write about my life or the life of another person and his/her specific accomplishments?

If yes, a biography/autobiography is the obvious choice.

If no, go to reconsider 1-3.

As Cappiello points out, this is probably the most familiar category of nonfiction as well as the easiest to identify. Still some sample titles can’t hurt:

The Boy Who Loved Math by Deborah Heiligman

Dave the Potter by Laban Carrick Hill

Daredevil: The Daring Life of Betty Skeleton by Meghan McCarthy

A Home for Mr. Emerson by Barbara Kerley

How the Beatles Changed the World by Martin W. Sandler

Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker by Patricia Hruby Powell andChristian Robinson

The Mad Potter: George Ohr, Eccentric Genius by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai by Claire A. Nivola

The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life by Lois Ehlert

What to Do About Alice? by Barbara Kerley

Does every book fit into one of these four categories? Maybe not. But the vast majority do, so this exercise is a good place for readers and writers to start as they think about nonfiction.

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About Me

Melissa Stewart is the award-winning author of more than 180 nonfiction books for children. Her lifelong fascination with the natural world led her to earn a B.S.
in biology and M.A. in science journalism. When Melissa isn’t writing or speaking to children or educators, she’s usually exploring natural places near her home or around the world.